Holiday Wishes from Cosmopolitan, Lauren Conrad, and unfortunately at least one Target Store as well, has Cosmo gone too far?

Why would Cosmopolitan risk Lauren Conrad's clothing designer reputation and Target's family image and make such a disrespectful January, 2014 Magazine cover and allow it to be placed inside at least one Target Store in Southern California?

Click on image to Enlarge if you want to read all the headlines.

What made the Cosmopolitan January 2014 magazine cover so out of place in a Target Store was the fact that it is the Winter Holiday Season and no other magazine on the 4 or 5 level Magazine display had anything near as raunchy. 

The Cosmopolitan magazine stood out so much and seemed so.... "not what I would want to see were I a parent visiting a Target Store with my kids" that I kind of requested/demanded that Target remove it from the store display as soon as possible, as in now please.

I then called Target from the customer service area and requested they remove the January 2014 Cosmopolitan from all of their stores, assuming it is also in other Target Stores.

If Cosmopolitan wants to compete with the raunchier magazines out there peddling soft porn in a wink wink, nudge nudge sort of way with sexual innuendo and pornographic titles on the cover, than put it in the adult magazine section and out of the more family oriented locations that still exist. 

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Could Drone Rail Technology be the next big thing?

How are blue collar jobs being affected by satellites up above and perhaps soon, drones as well? 

Pizza delivered by Drone? Probably not. Perhaps in low density areas?

If Drones could deliver pizzas, does that take away a blue collar pizza delivery job? Or is that job converted to a drone supervising job? Or, is the drone supervising job a higher paying job that replaces 2 or 3 blue collar driving jobs?

Probably the final option, drones may create some higher paying jobs that reduce more lower paying blue collar jobs as a trade off. 

Could the saving grace of drone technology be that it reduces the need for petroleum? Assuming that a drone delivering a pizza requires less energy than a 1.5 ton car does, than there could be a positive to peaceful drone activities.

Perhaps one day we'll see drone rail technology. Very thin elevated rail lines in which the drone pulls a magnetic or wheel based product carrying transport along a thin light rail along pre-defined routes. 

Drone stop off hubs allow for human retrieval by humans who then deliver the product over a much shorter distance. Perhaps a distance so short that walking or bicycling is the preferred method of final delivery.

What I find intriguing about drone rails is that the scope and ability of a drone to do bad things is potentially reduced in a dramatic fashion. In essence, a drone becomes the modern day light weight horse and buggy that follows specific paths for delivering goods.

What could foil this idea? Possibly birds could. Birds would probably LOVE to sit on a drone rail line (so would squirrels). Would the birds know to get out of the way when a drone approaches? Maybe an approaching warning sound could be produced as well. Not sure how a squirrel gets out of the way however. Maybe there would be turn out spots along the rail lines where an animal or bird could temporarily stay while the drone passes by.

The freedom of a drone is what most of the media reports about and it is drone freedom to do hostile things that pits people against drones. AlexLOGIC would like to see drones constrained into performing specific tasks that most would agree are both peaceful and energy conserving as well.

But then one wonders, are drones needed to drag product along a drone rail line? Might it be even more cost effective if the drone lines were electrified and turned into ultra light weight delivery monorail?

Or, is concentrating the power source within the drone itself the safest and most cost effective approach? Educated opinions are welcomed in the comments section.

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How to Make Drones Popular and dramatically increase public approval.

I believe the main reason the public is overwhelmingly against Drone technology is because Drones can carry weapons, can kill people by launching a missle, and can observe people without their permission, even if the person has done nothing "wrong". 

Drone technology could serve mankind magnificently if certain rules were put in place regarding "Drone behavior".

1.  Limit Drone speed to no more than 15 miles an hour.

2.  Limit the height at which drones can operate to less than 200 feet.

3.  A Drone can only carry a weapon if a judge has signed off that the

     target has been verified as a true threat.

4.  Require that all drones have insurance coverage.

5.  Drones can be legally shot at (assuming no people are in the

     background) if a person feels they are in danger because of the

     drone.

As it stands right now, Drones are military priority first, peaceful use second. Drones should be used in the manner in which NASA was created to observe outer space, except Drones should be used for peaceful purposes within our own local skies.   

  

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2013 television commercials, the year of the witty dialogue and engaging repartee.

"Guess What year it is"... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWBhP0EQ1lA

And let us not forget... Zombie "Cool, Cool, Cool". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTRvvDM-3eQ

There is another commercial that recently came out that also has a memorable commenting moment, but I can't remember it. Oops, will add it once I see it again or it seeps back into my forward lobe.

FOUND IT! Awesome "Take On Me" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbRVMua0HUc&feature=player_embedded#at=35

These are probably my three favorite commercials of 2013, yet as engaging as these television commercials are, I have to admit I keep forgetting what product it is that they are representing. This is also known as the kiss of death, the nightmare that all exceptional TV commercial's fear is lurking in the absent minds of those who love the commercial but have forgotten the name of the product behind the awesome commercial.

I think what happens is sometimes a commercial is so clever that the commercial makers themselves can't wait to get it out and into the public and their exuberance actually causes them to forget to carefully analyze if people will remember the product being sold.

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Unnecessary and Avoidable High Speed Train Accident in Northwest France.

It appears that the conductor of the High Speed Train that derailed in Northwest Spain was going more than twice the recommended speed on the turn that caused the train to derail. Apparently the conductor was somewhat of a "Speed Junkie" who had actually bragged on Facebook about how fast he was traveling on prior runs.

What I don't understand is why wouldn't the train's black box recorder from prior runs have sent warning flags whenever the conductor was over speeding by more than a certain percentage?

I just don't think it's the conductor's fault. He's been a conductor for 30 years. He probably started pushing the speed up years ago, maybe a mile an hour or two every week.

It wouldn't take but more than a year or two to suddenly be so far over the speed limit to boggle the mind. And, with no one saying no or warning the conductor, he simply continued to raise the mph ante.

What is the point of having a black box recorder if it cannot detect overspeeding? 

There are two critical failure issues that cannot be easily explained away. Were there no override systems in place that could detect dramatic over speeding and simply automatically slow down the train?  But more troubling than that, were there no warnings being sent to a human being that the conductor was over speeding in his prior runs?

Perhaps most troubling of all, if the conductor was over speeding dramatically, wasn't anybody noticing that he was arriving at his next scheduled destinations way too soon?

If the Conductor is going twice the recommended speed around curves, and we can assume is also going faster than recommended on the straightways, wasn't the black box / computer logging his average speed and then sending out a warning to someone else within the company?

The worst thing we can all do is blame the conductor. I blame a company that sees itself as too big to fail and to busy to be bothered by actual factual data that was being recorded by their black boxes.

Are black boxes only looked at AFTER a tragedy?  Really?  Can't black boxes also transmit data whenever the operation of a vehicle is out of known compliance standards?

I blame the operations people more than a conductor who simply trusted his train based on past performances. 

Sad to see this is how this company performs crash tests using real people instead of dummies.

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Lipitor/Atorvastatin, Atrial Fibrillation and the possible need for a pacemaker.

I am not a doctor, however I am a CareGiver and wanted to share an unintended chain reaction that occurred when an atrial fibrillation patient on warfarin takes Lipitor/Atorvastatin.

It appears that Lipitor / Atorvastatin can cause the kidneys to "work harder", resulting in water retention. Depending on the dosage, age of the person, and other factors, not every patient will necessarily have water retention.

However, in this instance, it turned out that approximately every 3 to 5 days the patient needed a small dose of furosemide/lasik. I try not to give this everyday as it can be too hard on the kidneys and then one has to give a potassium pill as well.

However, when the furosemide/lasik is not given everyday, it then becomes a guessing game as to when the furosemide/lasik should be given. Watching for weight gain of more than a pound or two is one way to determine if water is being retained. 

But where all of this gets scary is if the patient's heartbeat beats too slowly. The combination of too slow of a heartbeat and water retention can create a life threatening situation as water can begin to form in the chest area. Some signs of water retention include weight gain, wheezing, and increasing blood pressure. The patient will probably not feel well, either.

In this instance, sudden water retention occurred. Taking the patient to the emergency room just 20 minutes later could have led to their demise. A pacemaker was recommended as the combination of too slow of a heartbeat and water retention can lead to a fatal result.

After the pacemaker had been installed I subsequently asked the heart doctor if we could stop the lipitor/atorvastatin for a while since the patient's blood pressure readings had been "normal". 

The result has been no water retention and therefore no need for furosemide/lasik.

After the pacemaker was put in, two days later the patient experienced another wheezing episode the evening of the afternoon they had been released from the hospital. The patient had gone almost one week with no furosemide/lasik. Some hospitals don't like to  prescribe furosemide/lasid for patients while they are in the hospital.

But maybe the pacemaker is what has stopped the water from pooling in the chest area? Pacemaker functions may vary, one of the functions is ensure the heart does not beat slower than 60 times a minute.





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RedShark News - Super 8 is becoming popular again

RedShark News - Super 8 is becoming popular again

Hi, Your comments matter greatly. If you post anonymously you can still tell everyone who are you, example..."I work for...." etc. Please no link ads unless you contact me first.

Top Notch YouTube Uploads from your analog video tapes now offered by AlexLOGIC

AlexLOGIC is pleased to announce an exciting new service. For those of you who thrived in the 80's and 90's and have mastered precious videos onto any videotape format, AlexLOGIC can remaster those tapes for you onto any Hard drive format, or onto youtube or facebook.

Better still, you can supervise the transfer session. The first hour is 50 dollars, each additional hour is 35 dollars.  Your session will include all kinds of videotape color correction and video enhancements, along with sound as well.

If you really want to see how good anything from the past 25 years that is on videotape can still look on YouTube, please contact Alessandro Machi at the email address listed on the left margin of the AlexLOGIC.blogspot.com website.  The improvement in quality will astound you, guaranteed.

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Can Cardinal Roger Mahony Truly "Forgive" someone he has no control over?

Roger Mahony, a Los Angeles area Cardinal, recently wrote on his own blog that... 

...In the past several days, I have experienced many examples of being humiliated. In recent days, I have been confronted in various places by very unhappy people. I could understand the depth of their anger and outrage — at me, at the Church, at about injustices that swirl around us. 

Thanks to God’s special grace, I simply stood there, asking God to bless and forgive them.

I am going out on a limb here and presume that Mr. Mahoney does not truly understand what forgiveness is. 

Can anyone truly "Forgive" someone or something when they have no control over that thing or person? 

Forgiveness requires contrition from the person being forgiven. If the person being forgiven is not contrite, then the forgiveness is more likely an act of personal emotional survival.

Apparently Cardinal Mahoney forgave priests who had committed pedophile acts, covered up the incidents, but then at least some of those priests did those acts again. 

Apparently Cardinal Mahony then covered up the additional pedophile acts from law enforcement as well. I do not understand how Cardinal Mahony thinks the forgiveness card is all that matters.

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Robo Responders have arrived, and we will all be the worse for it.

I got another Robo Responder call. This one allegedly represented Breast Cancer Research. The call came from Pleasanton CA, 926-271-2244. 

How do I know the "sales person" I was interacting with was not real, but a compilation of one human's voice recordings cued to respond based on how I was answering their questions? I think my career in film / video production and editing probably helped me figure it out. 

Once I realized I was dealing with a Robo Responder, I carefully chose my responses.

I don't know if the term Robo Responder already exists. I just coined it without googling it. Robo Responders interact via a pre-recorded  human voice on the phone that is posing as an actual sales person.

(Quick update March 12, 2013, 11:13 am, the term robo responder is infrequently used, I found less than 70 google  hits,  primarily in regards to automatically sending emails to politicians. end update).

This was my second encounter with a Robo Responder (click here for the first). I asked where they were calling from and the voice said Michigan (they were actually calling from Pleasanton, CA). I then asked what the weather was like and they said they did not understand the question and would have me speak to a supervisor. 

I actually laughed at one point during the short conversation and the Robo Responder spontaneously laughed at the beginning of their response.

Then came the "sell".  Just like the first Robo Responder, they asked if I could make a "purchase/donation" in the amount of 25 dollars, as soon as I declined, the amount was lowered to 15 dollars.

They then asked if they could send an envelope in the mail and would I make a donation at that time.

I don't know if I am the first to report on robo responding, but if I am and you are the media, PLEASE credit me, Alessandro Machi of AlexLOGIC.blogspot.com. 

Robo Responding is going to become a consumer nightmare as it gains traction.

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NBC makes a mistake by pulling the Plug on "The Office".

I watched much less of NBC's Thursday Night Line-up once CBS's Person of Interest burst onto the scene in the beginning of 2011. Factor in that Third Rock got off to a late start that season due to Tina Fey's pregnancy, and NBC's presumed ratings drop was a sure thing.

Last night I watched the Office, Primarily because of the promo's for the show. It was an hour long episode, and I was absolutely delighted at the twists and turns that Andy put us through when he decided to fight back over the loss of his doting girlfriend, Erin.

I found the entire plot line comically profound on many levels. 

Just a couple of months earlier I watched as Erin and Andy formed what looked like a lifetime bond after Andy finally broke up with his girlfriend Jessica in front of Jessica's family and friends. 

Andy and Erin have to make a mad dash for the car and escape as projectiles pelt the windows. At this point, Erin gives Andy a look, the kind of look a girl gives a guy that says, this is it, we're together for life. It kind of reminded me of the final scene from "The Graduate".

Of course I have missed several episodes in between and suddenly I see that Erin wants to move on, and the entire office is against Andy. Andy fights back and says many poignant things, even using the word empathy, or the Office's lack of it towards Andy, to make his point.

In the middle of his own crazy behavior, Andy says some solid stuff. I find this type of comedy spellbinding, crazy behavior mixed with extremely deep and coherent analysis of the present situation.

One of my favorite lines from Andy, "So you all want me to just move on, yet, where were you when I wasn't here and Erin and Pete were getting together"?

And there it is. 

A punch out condemnation of present day society's fickle set of values. The Office "group" tells Andy he is supposed to respect and accept romantic decisions made by others, and be decent about it, yet that same society shamelessly witnessed the erosion of Andy and Erin's relationship for their own amusement.

Where was the Office's moral compass when Andy was slowly losing Erin because he was not there for a few weeks? The same group mindset that wants Andy to take a chill pill now is the same group that probably got the giggles watching Erin slip away from Andy while Andy was away.

And after Erin and Pete tell Andy to just be an adult and deal with it, Andy rises up to the challenge and is able to show both Erin and Pete just how it feels.

This is really deep stuff because there are no crazed gunman scenes, no slasher response, but rather a wickedly proper way to show Erin and Pete that it is easier said than done when it comes to letting go and moving on.

Which brings me to NBC and the cancellation of The Office. 

Maybe somebody should tell NBC that the Office has morphed into it's own version of Saturday Night live, in which slowly the cast members change as the seasons wear on, but the popularity of the show still rings through.

Unfortunately, there appears to be an unwritten rule among the major networds, "You don't mess with my reality TV primetime programming by putting real shows with real actors against it, and I don't mess with your reality TV programming either".

Even if the Office has declined in ratings, it could easily improve if it were just put opposite prime time reality television. Apparently, the  actors vs Reality TV battle is one duel the major networks are reluctant to parry on. 

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I was fooled into thinking I was talking to a human being when it was just a pre-recorded human voice able to respond to my responses.

Edit update, April 10, 2019 3:59pm. Just wanted to point out that this Article about fake real voice sounding phone call solicitations was was written and posted eight months before Time Magazine covered the issue. end of update.

I was called by a company out of Minnesota called Stepping Stones Entertainment. They wanted to know if I was interested in supporting family entertainment films.

The person who originally called me said they would be less than a minute and asked me three yes or no questions. I then agreed to a call back the next day so that a representative could give me more information about their quality family entertainment films. 

Just as promised, I received a call the very next day. After a couple of minutes of conversation, I realized I was interacting with a cleverly constructed human voice that had been pre-recorded and was simply recognizing my yes and no responses and moving on to the next pre-recorded sales pitch, but all done in a very convincing interactive tone.

After I had my Soylent Green, "oh my gosh, its pre-recorded people talking to me," moment, I paid extra close attention to make sure my suspicion was correct. When the pre-recorded human "voice" heard me answer "no" to their final offer, I wanted to test my hypothesis that I was indeed talking to a human recorded voice. 

I asked the human recorded voice what they thought of the super bowl. The voice did not have an answer and simply responded, "What did you say"?

I asked again in as clear and concise voice as I could muster, "What did you think of the Super Bowl", and the voice still did not understand, and then quickly said goodbye and the line disconnected.

The rammifications of this pre-recorded human sales voice technology are damming beyond initial comprehension. 

It is one thing to have "Siri", a computer generated voice, respond to a human being. It is quite another to have one's time occupied by a pre-recorded human voice pretending to be a real human, and getting away with it and actually generating credit card sales!

Most Ponzie schemes eminate from the concept of, "If we could only ask enough people to purchase our product or service, and have it cost us as little as possible to communicate with them, we win".  

As bad as ponzie schemes can be at times, when one adds in that the product being pitched is digitally replicable at pennies per copy, it becomes a ponzie schemer's ultimate wet dream if they can digitally generate tens of thousands of sales call interactions automatically, by paying a human being to record their voice reading various script response combinations, once.

In the next few years there could be literally hundreds of thousands of actual living, breathing telephones sales people being replaced by  pre-recorded interactive human voices. 

Many times phone sales jobs can be so stressful to have that at first glance it might look like not such a bad idea to take the human being out of the equation, unless you happen to be that human being and like your job.

However, the bigger victims are going to be the american consumer, and eventually the worldwide consumer, who will have to wade through never ending and ever increasing pre-recorded interactive sales calls while the actual company spends virtually no money per call hawking their product or service. We will be fooled, and deluged, whether we like or not.

If you recently made fun of Notre Dame football player Manti Te'o for being tricked into a relationship with a fake girlfriend who didn't actually exist, your karma points may soon expire and you could find yourself being tricked by a real human voice.

Another few hundred thumbtacks thrown in front of the consumer in the ever cluttering freeway of life.

Please Consider signing the Debt Neutrality Petition I started on Change Dot Org. This petition gives millions of consumers a fair chance to pay down their debts by freezing the interest rate charges, penalties and fees once an alleged credit card or student loan default has occurred.

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Important Breaking News scoop to the first media outlet that contacts me and uses the story.

I (Alessandro Machi), recently discovered something that could have major job loss implications for the american workforce. But rather than break the story here, I would be willing to trade my information to a major news show (Including local television news) as long as AlexLOGIC.com is credited during the on air piece.

First to request the rather shocking, breaking news story will probably get first dibs. I will be willing to give the lead out to more than one entity, however, the first news entity that requests it will get a window of time to produce the piece. 

I'm not looking for financial compensation, just on air credit. You can email via my bio located to the left of this article.

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Me TV Network Television, speeding up some of its programming? Say it isn't so.

I recently discovered Me TV network and love it. Shows that were a bit before my time have come to life. Shows such as The Rifleman, The Fugitive, Combat, 12 O'Clock High, Hazel, The Flying Nun, Gidget, Petticoat Junction, Emergency, Perry Mason, Naked City and many more remind me how fun television programming can be when actors actually speak dialogue to each other rather than evade or exploit the latest special effect.

What I also find fascinating is how women are treated in these shows. Women are usually portrayed as knowledgable and clever, or fighting for more rights and respect, and sometimes treated as objects to be won or protected.

Yet lately I've noticed a disturbing trend on Me TV Network, it looks like some scenes in at least one show are being sped up even as the dialogue remains normal. The weird thing is the commercial breaks don't seem to be particularly longer. "The  Saint", starring Robert Moore, seems to have some speeded up scenes, especially when there is no music playing and the scene is an action scene of some type.

I seem to recall that television show content back in the 50's, 60's and 70's used to run longer versus the amount of commercials per every half an hour. Sometime in the 80's television program content began to shrink in minutes per half hour, presumably so both more commercials and network television promos of upcoming television shows could be aired.

I don't like the speeded up scenes although I am relieved that the audio somehow remains intact and so far I don't think the speeded up virus has spread to all of their programs. 

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Kodak releases Vision 3 50 ASA film in the Super-8 format, see video below!

Kodak Vision 3 is amazing film and makes Super-8 film look like broadcast quality, wowzer.

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